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pointed in the direction we were heading; his hand jerked with tension.
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Harkonni nodded a little uncertainly, as if he couldn't stop himself from
answering even if he wanted to. "Yes, yes, all over the ground, up there, all
over--"
Ang swore and pushed past him, running toward the
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JOAND. VINGE
pack beast. "They're mine, goddamn it! I found them first--"
Harkonni ran after him. "No! Leave them alone! It's my treasure--" He clawed
at Ang's shoulder. Spadrin followed them and struck Harkonni with his rifle
butt, knocking him down. Ang went through the bags until he found the one he
was looking for. Harkonni sat protesting on the ground, with Spadrin's stun
rifle pointing into his face.
Ang jerked the bag open and plunged his hand into it, Generated by ABC Amber
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pulling out a handful of lumps. He looked down at what he held, and the blind
greed in his eyes turned to incredulity.
"Shit!" He flung the handful away, and dumped the bag's contents onto the
ground. "It's nothing but shit!"
At first I thought he only meant that he hadn't found what he wanted. But then
I saw his face. I pushed away from the rover and went to where he stood
looking down. Scattered on the ground around his feet were small brownish-gray
lumps of dried excrement.
I looked from Ang's face to Harkonni's, and Spadrin's.
"Gods!" Spadrin muttered. His mouth twisted with disgust.
The stun rifle quivered in his hands. For a minute
I thought he was going to fire it into Harkonni's terrified face. At that
range the charge would kill him. Harkonni began to cry. Spadrin stepped back
and away from him, as if killing him was beneath even Spadrin's dignity.
"Let's get out of here."
Ang nodded and dropped the bag he was still holding onto the pile of dung. He
wiped his hands on his shorts. His face was empty of everything but relief.
"It's still up there." He looked away, following the whillp's shining
acid-etched trail on up the canyon
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with his eyes. "My treasure." He started back to the rover. Spadrin grabbed up
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a sack of Harkonni's food supplies and followed him.
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WORLD S END
"My treasure, my treasure . . ." Harkonni sobbed. He crawled past me toward
the pile of dung.
"Gedda!" Ang called. "Come on!"
I went back to the rover, almost running to get away from the sound of
Harkonni's weeping.
«3
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I
Dean feel it, I can almost smell it!" Ang said this morning.
He got us moving when it was barely dawn, he was so sure we'd find his
treasure today. The fault broken terrain ahead of us was stained a rust red.
He swore it would hold the solii formation. He set the rover's tracer
equipment to close-scan for the proper mineral compounds. He was so sure. . .
.
The sky was filled with black and purple clouds, the way it often was in the
late afternoons, turning the light washed badlands sullen and dark ahead.
Lightning flickered and a few fat drops of rain pockmarked the dust on the
windshield, making a promise the clouds never kept.
Thunder rolled over and around us like the laughter of the gods. And we came
to the end of Ang's journey.
Ang was piloting, like he usually did--today he was even humming tunelessly.
He'd never done that before.
Spadrin stole stale snapper biscuits from my plate while
I tried to eat standing up, pressed into a corner of the cab.
His eyes dared me to stop him. I didn't even care--the heat, the stink, the
food poisoning, had killed my appetite days ago. Only Spadrin had any appetite
left, like
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the animal he was.
Then suddenly the rover lurched to a stop, so abruptly that I lost my balance
and knocked over Spadrin's bottle of ouvung. It spilled on his leg. He swore
at me, and grabbed my wrist. "Clean it up, Gedda." He jerked me down; I saw
his knife blade glint and then disappear. I
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